It's love at first sight, but it just isn't to be

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It was totally unexpected, and not at all what I planned to chat about with you today. Her name is Blossom. We can, very unfortunately, never be together.

The backstory is a simple one, born out of my sheer boredom, which regular readers know means I will go to a place a lot of people never go, places that rarely ever make the newspaper.

A colleague suggested the Irvine Animal Care Center on Oak Canyon Road. It was close to home, so why not, I figured.

And there she was, this shy, lithe little minx, all done up in blue and white, who from the moment I first met her, I could not get out of my mind.

I must, however, first tell you about the center. It is a place that probably could only exist in neatly ordered and well-heeled Irvine, a place that would never lower itself by calling the facility where it houses and cares for abandoned animals, of all things, a shelter.

No, this is a place where, when you entered the double gates out front, you are immediately greeted by two dozen bobbing and scratching chickens, who make their home along with three potbellied pigs and two goats – Paddington and Dakota – inside the red- and white-trimmed buildings that make up the “farm,” a tidy little enclave that looks like something out of a child's first reader.

It is a place that has a roster of more than 400 people who actually volunteer to help care for, pet and clean up after the animals, including Connie Burns, an Aliso Viejo resident who arrives five mornings a week before opening to tend to the chickens, the goats and Albert, Elliot and Annie, the potbellied pigs.

“I love animals so much,” she tells me as she combs the pigs with a wire brush. “I've been an activist all my life. I talk to them all day long, and just love being around them. I am so blessed.”

I get, on this morning, a guided tour by three women: Kimberly Cherney, the interim supervisor of the center; Christine Brown, a senior animal care specialist in charge of dogs and the farm; and Crystal Nettles, the center's spokeswoman.

Before we begin, they have me make note of two things: No animals at the center are euthanized, ever, except for certain medical and extreme behavior reasons. And none of the animals on the farm are available for adoption.

“The potbellied pigs are a good example of what we battle all the time,” Brown says as we walk. “People get them where they are so small and so cute. What they don't realize is they get big, 150 to 200 pounds easy. Who wants that in their house?”

After we leave the farm, our first stop is at the rabbit enclosure. I have been to a fair number of shelters in my life, and never once did I see a rabbit, much less the 25 that now call the Irvine center home.

Each of them, including Felix, who has the longest tenure of two years, will remain at the center until they are adopted.

“People will get one for their kids at Easter because they are so cute,” Cherney tells me. “But they get big. And these are not a stuffed animal. They are a huge, lifelong commitment.”

When the cuteness wears off, and the caring for a rabbit becomes a chore, she said, people will dump them in parks where city workers discover them and bring them to the center.

“Educate yourself before you get a bunny,” Brown says. “They require much, much more care than a cat or a dog.”

Yes, dogs. On this day there were 45 of them at the center, an unheard of, are-you-kidding-me? low number at shelters I have known.

Irvine, though, is different from most places. People here, I am told, know all about spaying and neutering their pets. And more than 60 percent of strays who come into the shelter, Crystal Nettles told me, are returned to their owners. The average pre-adoption stay for most dogs, she said, is 14 days.

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